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Human Scale
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Social entrepreneur Chad Rochkind helps
to empower Detroit’s urban renewal.
Adam Finkel | Contributing Writer
I
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2082600
24 March 10 • 2016
t’s been a busy year for Detroiter
Chad Rochkind, a social entrepreneur
who started Human Scale Studio.
You may have spotted him on a panel
at the University of Michigan’s Urban
Entrepreneurship Symposium this past
November. Or perhaps you saw that
he was named to the inaugural class of
K880 Cities Fellows, a prestigious award
given by the Knight Foundation to
execute urbanism projects.
Human Scale Studio, launched in
2015, is focused on making neighbor-
hoods, small businesses and public
spaces inclusive, diverse and intentional
for the happiness and prosperity of all.
The company is specifically working
right now on projects to transform the
Corktown neighborhood through public
space, placemaking and small business
development on Michigan Avenue and
Roosevelt Park.
Recently, Rochkind, 31, was chosen as
a finalist in the Knight Cities Challenge,
a yearly challenge to fund America’s
most interesting civic innovation proj-
ects. More than 4,500 submissions
were received this past year. After two
months of intense deliberation and dili-
gence, 158 finalists were selected.
Detroit and Philadelphia had the larg-
est number of finalists at 20 each. For
the second consecutive year, Detroit had
the best response to this national chal-
lenge with 767 total applicants.
Rochkind, who for years has built
projects to better urban environments,
once again has a project that stood out.
His submission, “The Underground
Order of Tactical Urbanists,” focuses on
creating a network of tactical urbanists
who collectively select a single urban
challenge each year on which to focus
quick, low-cost, creative improvements.
Since moving to the city in 2012,
Rochkind has become a key leader in
the community’s social entrepreneurial
landscape. He curated and executed
ASSEMBLE@TheMax, a speakers’ series
of globally renowned urbanists attended
by more than 1,000 people. He also
planned and executed ASSEMBLE@
Mackinac, an alternative gathering that
ran concurrently with the Mackinac
Policy Conference. Additionally, he
organized IDEA, a competition to gen-
erate ideas for local community groups,
and wrote and published Detroit and the
Innovative City, a report that has been
read more than 15,000 times by people
on every continent on the globe.
Rochkind is just getting started in
taking initiative for the betterment of
Detroit. He grew up in West Bloomfield
but has lived in New York, London and
w lives in Hubbard
San Francisco. He now
etroit. The JN
Farms in Southwest Detroit.
scuss what makes
interviewed him to discuss
him tick and what he’s up to next.
What brought you back to Detroit?
tion of coming
I always had the intention
he timing was
back to Detroit when the
ute to the city’s
right for me to contribute
h. I wrote my
reinvention and rebirth.
s-roots urban
master’s thesis on grass-roots
w Detroit as a
development, and I saw
eal mecca of this
place that could be a real
emerging global trend. .
esearch out here, I
When I was doing research
met Jordan Wolfe, who o had just started
roit Harmonie,
a nonprofit called Detroit
inging peo-
which was all about bringing
kgrounds
ple from different backgrounds
together to help make the city
better for all. I believed d in the
mission, so when they were
ve direc-
looking for an executive
tor, I got a call in NYC and
ked
pretty much never looked
back.
How did you come up
n
with the name Human
me of
Scale Studio? The name
my company is meant to
express our philosophy y
for urban develop-
ment. Often times,
developments hap-
pen at the level of the
a-
corporation or the orga-
o-
nization or the automo-
re
bile, but really cities are
for people. We should
develop all of our city
gs
systems, from buildings
to streets to education, ,
at the human scale, and d
that’s exactly what my
company does.
What is your long-
rgani-
term vision for the organi-
m goal is
zation? The long-term
for Human Scale Studio o to be a
globally relevant company that is help-
ing drive the conversation around the
future of cities and how they can be bet-
ter places for human beings to live.
What are the biggest obstacles/
challenges to your goals? This is a new
field, so theres
there’s a lot of educating you
Chad
Rochkind